Subtitle translation of documentaries from the perspective of reception aesthetics : a case study of Masters in Forbidden City

Abstract

With the strategic trend of heading towards a culture of “Going Global” Cultural and The Belt and Road notion, China tries to improve its soft skills image by introducing more and more cultural products to the entire world. Documentary films are artistic works that perform both entertaining and educational functions. Hence, they play a very important role in the cultural communication dimension. In the global market, foreign documentaries such as those produced by BBC seem more popular than those produced in China, with the quality of subtitle translation being one of the possible reasons.

In recent years, many documentaries with Chinese characteristics like A Bite of China have been produced by the China Central Television (CCTV) documentary channel to increase China’s cultural influence. In 2016, a documentary film called Masters in Forbidden City, which shows the spirit of the craftsmen and restorers in the Forbidden City became very popular in China. This documentary film has helped the world have a better understanding of the traditional spirit of the Chinese craftsmen. Hence, subtitle translation of this film is of great importance. Previous studies on subtitle translation are mostly based on Domestication and Foreignization (Venuti, 1995) and Functional Equivalence Theory (Nida, 1964). Reception Aesthetics Theory was put forward by Jauss in 1967 and has been mainly used for guiding literary works. One of the key features of this theory is the concept of being reader-centered. Subtitle translation of documentaries aim to convey Chinese culture to other countries, so translators need to care about target audiences during the process of translation. Thus, it will be useful to use Reception Aesthetics to help improve translation work. However, currently the studies from this aspect are thin and incipient. Accordingly, this paper will analyze the strategies from the perspective of the Reception Aesthetics Theory, in a hope to contribute to the studies of subtitling documentaries from Chinese to English.